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Monday, April 30, 2007

The Audit Bureau of Circulations, for the fifth consecutive reporting period, today listed steep losses and a few gains in circulation. The Newspaper Association of America reported daily circulation down 2.1 per cent and Sunday down 3.1 percent. Overall daily circulation for the spring period declined 2.1% to 44,961,066 and Sunday decreased 3.1% to 48,102,437..

The New York Times was down 1.9 percent to 1,120,420. Circulation was up two-tenths of one percent to 2,798,877 at USA Today and 7.6 percent to 7,624,728 at the New York Post. The Wall Street Journal also was up six-tenths of a percent to 2,082,420.

Some of the largest declines occurred at metro papers. The Dallas Morning News hemorrhaged 14.2% of daily circ to 411,919. Sunday fell 13.3% to 563,079. Daily and Sunday circulation at The San Diego Union-Tribune slipped 6.5% to 296,331 and 7.2% to 378696 respectively. At the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, daily circ declined 4.9% to 230,870 and Sunday decreased 4.4% to 251,666.

The Miami Herald lost 5.5% of its daily circulation to 272,299 copies and 10.1% of its Sunday circ 342,432 copies. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale was down 8.6% to 226,591 while Sunday fell 6% to 319,103. The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., which recently revised its September 2006 publisher's statement, said daily circ fell 6% to 372,629. Sunday dropped 4.3% to 570,523.

Daily circulation at The Orange County (Calif.) Register slipped 5% to 284,613 while Sunday was down 7% to 329,549. The Austin American-Statesman reported daily circ dropped 5.6% to 173,579 and Sunday declined 215,894.

The Los Angeles Times lost 4.2% of its weekday circ to 815,723. Sunday was down 4.7% to 1,173,096. Daily Circulation at the Chicago Tribune slipped 2.1% to 566,827. Sunday fell 1.7% to 940,620. At The Sun in Baltimore, weekday circulation 1.7% to 232,138 and Sunday dropped 6% to 377,561. Daily and Sunday circulation at Newsday plummeted 6.9% to 398,231 and 5% to 464,169.

The Washington Post lost 3.4% of its weekday circ to 699,130 copies. Sunday fell 3.2% to 929,921.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

His password was "Mocha." But other data on Par Ridder's laptop computer would have been even tastier to his new bosses.

Last month, Ridder left the publisher's job at the St. Paul Pioneer Press - the newspaper his great-grandfather bought in 1927 - to become publisher of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. The defection to the larger, more stable rival across the Mississippi River was a shock, given their intense competition for readers and advertisers.

Now the Pioneer Press claims in a lawsuit that Ridder handed over spreadsheet after spreadsheet of sensitive data to the Star Tribune - budgets, monthly profits, employee wage data, and perhaps most important, how much advertisers were paying. It claims that Ridder stole a file folder with his own non-compete agreement and that of other Pioneer Press executives, and the Star Tribune failed to return copies of the data he took.

When Ridder announced his resignation, Dean Singleton - chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc., which runs the Pioneer Press - said he wasn't worried about trade secrets. Singleton felt much differently last week.

"I didn't know at that time the magnitude of the heist," Singleton said Friday. "I thought at the time that Par would make a gracious exit, and would be honorable, and I didn't know he had stolen everything we had."

The lawsuit filed in state court names Ridder, the Star Tribune, its parent company and two other executives Ridder recruited from the Pioneer Press and alleges fraud by Ridder and violation of state trade secret laws. Besides unspecified compensation, it seeks to have Ridder removed as publisher of the Star Tribune for a year because of a non-compete agreement.

The Star Tribune issued a statement by Chairman Chris Harte saying: "There are facts in dispute relative to the recent move of Par Ridder from the St. Paul Pioneer Press to the Star Tribune. We will address these matters point by point in our legal response to the complaint and look forward to a full resolution."

Click on the headline to read the full Associated Press story by Joshua Freed

Art Beck has been retired for 20 years in July from the Beacon Journal circulationdepartment, but family members are still at work and so is Art. Here is an update via email asrequested.

My daughter, Shirley Letta, works for Ohio.Com My son Carl Beck workes as a mechanic inthe mail room, My Grandaughter Stephanie Crace works in Editorial onSaturday and Sunday answering the phone.I work 4 part time jobs (like to keep busy).

I am a sub in falls high parking lot(guard)-work in the falls school system as an attendent with handicaped children-work at leisure timegolf course and swimming pool-and also am an usher at Akron Aeros baseball.

The ratings were also taken off CreditWatch, where they were placed with negative implications on March 8.

The rating outlook is stable.

"The lower ratings follow our review of operating conditions in the newspaper sector, and consider McClatchy's ability to improve credit measures over the next few years through management's focus on debt reduction," credit analyst Peggy Hebard said in a statement.

Shares of McClatchy fell 68 cents to $29.18 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock hit a 52-week low of $28.80 earlier in the session. It had previously traded in a range of $29.16 to $47.73.

Ten Knight-Bagehot Fellows in economics and business journalism have been named by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for the 2007-2008 academic year.

The mid-career fellowships provide full tuition and a living stipend of $50,000 for experienced journalists to take graduate courses at Columbia’s schools of business, law, and international and public affairs. Fellows also attend special seminars at the journalism school led by scholars and business experts during the nine-month program, which begins in August. The program is open to journalists with at least four years experience.

This year’s fellows are: Jeremy Caplan of Time Magazine, Jose Eduardo Teixeira Costa of VOCÊ S/A, Dimitra DeFotis of Barron’s, Jim Edwards of Brandweek, Allison Fass of Forbes, Liza Featherstone of The Nation, Paul Glader of The Wall Street Journal, Greg Griffin of The Denver Post, Leoneda Inge of North Carolina public radio station, WUNC, and Bryan Myers of the PBS newsmagazine program, “NOW.”

Founded in 1975, the fellowships are named for John S. and James L. Knight, brothers who established the Knight Foundation, and Walter Bagehot, the 19th-century British economist and editor of The Economist. They are administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and directed by Terri Thompson, a former associate editor of U.S. News & World Report and former reporter for Business Week.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will announce the first-year winners of the Knight News Challenge on May 23 at the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow in Miami, hosted by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek.

The Knight News Challenge – a contest open to anyone, anywhere – offers $25 million over five years in awards for news experiments that use digital media to build communities in specific geographic areas. The first year’s winners range from individuals to corporations and were chosen from among 1,650 applicants after recommendations by a panel of experts in digital media. They will receive a total of $12 million, including several multi-year awards. Applications for the 2007 round can be submitted at www.newschallenge.org starting July 1.

A press release about the winners will be released on May 23, the day of the announcement.

Knight Foundation is a sponsor of the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow 2007, an annual forum for new media issues attended by media representatives from the business and editorial side. More information is available at www.interactivemediaconference.com.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight Foundation supports ideas and projects that create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfdn.org.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Newspapers that will show daily circulation declines of 5 percent or more in next week's ABC report include the San Jose Mercury News, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune, Star Ledger, Orange County Register, Austin American-Statesmen, and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Gary Pruitt, CEO of McClatchy, explained during a Q1 earnings call on Tuesday (reported in an earlier blog post) that his company will continue to experience declines in circulation. (It was not too long ago that McClatchy could boast of constant circ gains). To give a taste of what is to come, during Q1, McClatchy executives said daily circulation fell 3.6% and Sunday dropped 3.9%.

The Indianapolis Star should be one of the biggest metro gainers. Daily circulation (Monday-Friday) rose 2.4% to 261,405 copies and Sunday was up 2% to 354,312 copies, according to Bryan Sturgeon, vice president of circulation at the Indy Star. The paper benefited when the Colts made (and won) the Super Bowl and by adding Thursday editions to Sunday-only subscriptions.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press grew its daily circulation (Monday-Friday) 0.3% to 191,736. Sunday is virtually flat up 0.1% to 251,865. Also encouraging: the paper attributed the increases to gains made in home-delivered copies.

I'm living in SC for the time being as I aid my 93-year-old mother in her move from her home of 38 plus years into a retirement center.

I've kept in touch with some BJ staffers (Joan Rice), but just through Christmas cards.

I'm retired now after 20 years in CO publishing a weekly and teaching for 5 years in Nebraska. Beensearching for former staffers to get their take on the BJ sale and its impact on paper, community, etc. Raninto an Akron artist who told me the paper has changed "radically."

Well at least you can read a transcript of the McClatchy Co. Q1 Earnings Call.

With a little bit of color added by the blogger, here’s how CEO Gary Pruitt started the conversation:

Thanks, Pat. We reported first quarter earnings from continuing operations of $14.5 million or $0.18 per share compared to earnings from continuing operations of $21.8 million or $0.46 per share in the first quarter of 2006. Our results exclude the operations of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which was sold on March 5th and is reported as a discontinued operation.

In this challenging revenue environment, we are delivering on the cost side. We reduced cash operating expenses by 6.3% in the quarter on a pro forma basis. In fact, our operating cash flow grew slightly on a pro forma basis, despite the decline in revenues. Few newspaper operations can make that claim.

Our revenues from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2007 were $566.6 million compared to revenues from continuing operations of $194.5 million in 2006. The increase, of course, in revenues reflects the addition of 20 newspapers acquired in the Knight Ridder acquisition on June 27, 2006. On a pro forma basis -- that is including all newspapers as if they had been owned since the beginning of 2006 -- revenues from continuing operations were down 5.0%. Advertising revenues were down 5.3%, and circulation revenues were down 3.6% on a pro forma basis.

While we're seeing this iceberg of increased medical costs heading toward us under the Canadian's switch to Aetna, folks like Aetna and major GOP contributors are making out like bandits. For them, Medicare Advantage is to their advantage in a humongous way.To read it for yourself, go tohttp://www.acorn.net/bjretirees/medicare.htm

on the BJ Retirees website.Samples:1. The government is giving money to the Aetnas of this country, but a lot of the money isn't reaching the Medicare patients the way it did under the previous system when there were no Aetnas middlemen.2. Medicare Advantage plans cost the taxpayers 12% more then the previous Medicare setup. About $10 billion per year more.3. Congress refused to let Medicare negotiate drug prices the way it did other health care costs. You've seen your Medicare statements where a procedure charge was $900 but Medicare approved only $550 and then paid 80% of that with you or your secondary coverage paying the rest. Doesn't happen with prescription prices.I guess if it gets bad enough, the common folks among us who once opposed universal health care might have second thoughts.

In less than four months I have reached $1,589.96 in the initial coverage that stops at $2,400. Once I do, it looks like I will have to pay ALL of the next $1,450 in prescription costs, till I reach the $3,850 limit. But that's misleading. To get to $2,400, Aetna counts the costs of the prescriptions. To get to $3,850, Aetna counts ONLY your out-of-pocket prescription costs, not the total costs of the prescriptions. My "true out of pocket limit" is only $455 so far, which means I'll have to spend $3,395 more of my money before I hit the $3,850 limit. At least, that's the way I understand it.

That will more than wipe out the $1,750 advantage of Aetna over United Health Care in overall health care coverage. Remember, the United Health Care annual out-of-pocket limit was $2,000 but the Aetna limit is $250, which means we're $1,750 better off with Aetna than with UHC in that case.

As I said before, we're going to have some better and some worse financial situations with the forced switch to Aetna by the Canadian. I'm guessing we'll be worse off or the Canadian wouldn't have made the switch. He pays our health care premiums (plus Aetna gets our Medicare premiums and a government subsidy on top of that), but that has to cost him less than under UHC or he wouldn't have made the switch. Our increased health care costs are a back-door cut in our pensions because we have less money for everything else.

If you want to find out how you stand with your Aetna prescriptions, or your overall health care, your running totals are available for your account at Aetna.comIf you know your actual Rx costs in 2007, click on Comments and let us know. If you opted for Summa or another plan rather than Aetna, also let us know. Then we can all compare and see which way we want to go for 2008. Stay tuned.

Charles J. Lally, 61, an attorney and prize-winning journalist, died in his sleep early Tuesday morning, April 17, 2007, while on a bicycle tour in Texas.

He was born in Cleveland and traveled extensively all his life throughout the United States and Europe. After ten years of private practice, Mr. Lally was named the Conference Attorney for the eighth District Court of Appeals, a position he had held. He was a tireless mediator and negotiator advocating the resolution of civil appeals before the case was sent to the appellate panel of three judges. His purpose was to obtain fair compromise for the parties in and appeal, thereby lightening the heavy docket of the appellate court. He excelled in and enjoyed his work. Prior to attending law school at The University of Akron School of Law, Mr. Lally was a prizewining journalist.

He was the beloved husband of Marlene N. (nee Nemer); dear father of Charles N. (wife Kristin), Thomas M. (wife Brande), and Daniel R.; grandfather of Gwyneth, Kate, and Emma; brother of John P. and William Lally and Patricia Bystrom.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Charles J. Lally, a former Beacon Journal reporter who has been a conference attorney for the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals since 1991, died suddenly at the age of 61.

Lally, an avid cyclist, was on a bike tour to Austin, Texas and apparently died quietly in his sleep. His wife, Marlene, said Lally has been taking bike tours all over the country for the last four or five years. The tours often cover up to 100 miles a day, she said. Lally had left a week ago for Austin and she had talked to him regularly by phone. She got a call from the Ohio Supreme Court stating that the tour director was trying to get in touch with her and then she was told he died in his sleep.

There was a brief obituary, reprinted below, in the Beacon Journal, today.

Lally left the Beacon Journal in March, 1982. He received a B.A. from Kent State University and his J.D. from the University of Akron School of Law. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School Negotiation Program and had specialized training in negotiations nd mediation through the University of New Mexico and Capital University. He was engaged in private practice before joining the Appeals Court. Court. Conference Attorneys, who have offices on the first floor of the Cuyahoga County Court House, conduct the Appellate Court's Prehearing Conference Program established in 1991. The program is designed to settle civil cases before the parties in pending appeals.

Funeral mass for Lally will be at Gesu Church, 2490 Miramar Blvd., University Hiehgts, at 10 .m. Wednesday. A son, Charles, mentioned in the obituaray below is opening a drugstore in Tallmadge. Son Thomas is an accountant in Marion, OH, and son Daniel is a chemistry major studying medicine at Cleveland State University.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Six area college students have been selected for scholarships in memory of John S. Knight and public relations professional Ludel Sauvageot.

This year's Knight scholars are Stephanie Blackstone, Tim Magaw, Stephanie Park and David Yochum, all of Kent State University, and Vincent Dorsey of the University of Akron. The Sauvageot scholar is Alexia Harris of Kent State. Each receives $3,000.

The Knight scholarships are awarded by the John S. Knight Memorial Journalism Fund Corp. and the Sauvageot scholarship is awarded by the Akron Press Club.

The scholars will be recognized at a luncheon at noon April 27 at the Martin University Center, 105 Fir Hill, at the University of Akron.

Doug Clifton, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, will speak..

The lunch, sponsored by the Press Club, is $15.

For reservations, contact Ron Syroid at 330-607-6811 or rlsyroid@neo.rr.com.

The Los Angeles Times is expected to announce Monday a plan to cut about 5% of its workforce, or approximately 150 jobs, as profits at the newspaper and its Chicago-based parent company continue to slide.

Times executives said they expected most of the cuts, including nearly 70 newsroom positions, to come through voluntary buyouts. After the reductions, the newspaper would have about 2,625 employees. The news staff would shrink to about 850 people from 920.

Job reductions have been widely anticipated since last fall, when Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson and Editor Dean Baquet resisted editorial-staff cuts demanded by Tribune Co., The Times' Chicago-based parent. Both executives left the paper in the highly publicized dispute.

Nothing in Tribune's financial results this week alleviated concerns about the decline in revenue. The company's operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2007 was down 12% to $238 million from $271 million in the same period last year, while operating profit declined 16% to $181 million from $217 million.

Click on the headline to read the full story by James Rainey in the LA Times

Friday, April 20, 2007

A Ramsey County District Court judge has granted a request from the Saint Paul Pioneer Press that they be allowed to search at least a dozen computers owned or used by Minneapolis Star Tribune employees over concerns that the Minneapolis paper obtained its main competitor's confidential advertising information.

The judge also granted a request from the St. Paul paper that the Star Tribune's director of niche publications, Jennifer Parratt, be temporarily suspended from her job. Parratt, who was hired away from the Pioneer Press, started with the Star Tribune on Tuesday.

The St. Paul paper has alleged that Parratt broke a noncompete agreement when she took the new post at the Star Tribune and now poses an unfair threat to their advertising business.

The Star Tribune has maintained that since March 29, the day that Par Ridder received a letter from Pioneer Press attorney Dominic Cecere accusing him of carrying St. Paul's confidential information to Minneapolis on his Pioneer Press laptop computer, the paper has taken steps to identify and sequester or remove that information from the Star Tribune.

"We understand the judge's decision to preserve the status quo until all the evidence can be gathered and heard, and we will fully comply with the order," Star Tribune spokesman Ben Taylor said in a statement. "We're anxious to get a full hearing on the merits and look forward to presenting our case as soon as possible."

The Star Tribune has 48 hours to turn over the computers, which will be searched for any Pioneer Press information. Parratt, who was at work Friday morning, left the building when the order was issued.

The order also asks the Star Tribune to turn over all Pioneer Press paper files, including the noncompete agreements for Ridder and Parratt. The lawsuit accuses Ridder of taking the agreements with him when he left St. Paul.

I'm getting in touch with counsel today to start the process. Realize this will take time and we won't probably have any info as to theprogress for at least a month. Remember the wheels of justice grind very slow but hopefully very fine also.

So, if you haven't already sent a check for $50 please do so at your first convenience. Make it out to me (no, I'm afraid there won't beenough money there for a grand vacation for me.) and send it to my home address:

Probably late next week I will take those checks..adding my own of course...and open our legal "slush" fund. If any of you don't want yourname known to others please contact me and when I give out the info about the status of the fund I will honor your wishes and use a "bogus" namewhile still accounting for your participation in the project.

It's not too late, at any time, for others to join...so keep rattling the bushes and help us all defray the costs of this initial effort.Any questions...contact me either by e-mail or phone.

Bob Abbott is heading up our attempt to abort the Canadian's illegal changing of our health care coverage, even though many of us had union contracts that prohibited any change during our retirement years.

Time-Warner Cable 23 aired the first of the Akron Press Club series called "Trading Places With the Media." It was the Beacon Journal's slot on Thursday evening (April 19) which was dubbed "Be the Editor" or a public viewing of the Beacon Journal's morning news meeting.

It did not sound like the old news meetings I used to know which were a little more raucous with hard questions and not very clear answers, but in today's politically correct world it is probably much tamer. It probably did give viewers some insight into how editors meet to decide what will go into the newspaper--until news happens and changes it all.

Managing Editor Mizell Stewart introduced them and explained that there are meetings at 9:45 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. He talked about placing content on Ohio.com which has more space and allows photographers, for instance, to show more of their work. He pointed out that getting space on servers is a whole lot cheaper than newsprint.

Behind the Microphone for TV and radio types will air at 7 pm. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, and 7 p.m. April 26

News of the Week, on reahing local communities, will air at 7 p.m. April 28, 4 p.m. , April 29 and 7 p.m. May 2.

The Media Online Future will air at 7 p.m. May 5, 4 p.m. May 6 and 7 p.m. May 10.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

The publishers of more than 260 U.S. newspapers, including McClatchy Co., are hitching their online aspirations to Internet powerhouse Yahoo Inc.

The alliance announced Monday builds upon a consortium announced nearly five months ago. Since then, the alliance has recruited five more companies, including McClatchy Co., the nation's third-largest newspaper publisher. With the latest additions, the group now spans 264 newspapers in 44 states.,

The newspapers also will funnel more of their stories through Yahoo's heavily trafficked news, finance and sports sections in an effort to lure more readers to their Web sites.

The financial terms and the length of the newspaper consortium's contract with Yahoo weren't disclosed. In a Monday conference call, newspaper executives predicted Yahoo will help their companies recoup some of their recent losses to the Internet. Without providing specifics, the newspaper executives indicated the anticipated revenue gains from the Yahoo partnership would become evident next year.

The amount spent on the Internet by local advertisers, a major source of newspaper revenue, is expected to total $12.4 billion in 2010, up from $3.4 billion last year.

Meanwhile, advertisers aren't spending as much on print. That trend became even more apparent last year when overall print advertising at newspapers fell 1.7 percent while online advertising increased 31.5 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America, an industry group. Total newspaper revenue dipped by 0.3 percent.

A public spat between the two largest newspapers in Minnesota could see its first judicial ruling within days after a Ramsey County district judge said Wednesday that he will consider the St. Paul Pioneer Press' request to examine at least a dozen Minneapolis Star Tribune computers.

The St. Paul paper wants to see whether some of its confidential advertising information has been shared among top Star Tribune executives.

Also expected soon is a ruling on whether Jennifer Parratt, a former Pioneer Press employee who on Tuesday became the Star Tribune's director of niche publications, may continue working. The suit says she had a non-complete clause in her contact . The Pioneer Press has asked that she be temporarily suspended to prevent her from using information she gathered in St. Paul against her former employer.

Judge David Higgs issued an order to both newspapers at the conclusion of an hourlong hearing on Wednesday prohibiting the destruction of any information pertinent to the case, framing his comments against the newspaper's public squabble.

"I think you are all aware that the credibility of the media is in question here, and that doesn't bode well for either of you," Higgs said.

Separately, Chris Harte, the Star Tribune's chairman [and former BJ publisher] , rejected a request from the paper's main union to conduct an independent inquiry. "The allegations are just that -- allegations -- which are going to be dealt with in the course of this lawsuit," he wrote in an e-mail to the union's top officers. "I hope you all will agree with me that our efforts are better spent by focusing on serving readers and advertisers and letting this lawsuit work its way through the courts."

Click on the headline to read Matt McKinney’s full story in the Minneapolis Star TribuneYou may need to search on the words "judge credibility"

Geoff Gevalt writes about the season's end of his maple syup making in Vermont in his editor's blog he writes for his Young Writers Project.. You can click on the headline to read his post, but here are a couple of graphs snipped out.

On Sunday, when it was snowing and raining and hailing and blowing, I was outside under our “sugar roof” boiling sap. I love making maple syrup. It slows me down, makes me think and forces me to look around. This year, the season has been weird; the sap ran in late December but not again until late March. It came in spits and starts and then, finally, unleashed.

So I was standing out under the roof, the wind howling in, snow almost landing in the evaporator pan before the steam would melt it, at the last moment.[snip] [snip] [snip]

Season’s pretty well over. I’ve got a couple of gallons in pots to filter out and bottle. But many of the taps have dried up, a few others have been attacked by ants and the others are producing yellowish sap that is too far gone. I was hoping to squeeze one more run out of the trees, but it looks like it’s just too late in the year and it gets too hot too quickly. By hot I mean 45 or 50. And we haven’t had cold enough nights — barely freezing and a lot of days where it was above freezing.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The Ohio $250 tax credit is for retirement income credit ($200 maximum) and senior citizen credit ($50). Because the BJ pays our Aetna medical premium, we cannot deduct the part we pay, if any, on a separate line but must include it along with other excess medical expenses as a deduction, NOT a credit, on our Ohio income tax form. It includes our out-of-pocket expenses. Only the part that's over the 7.5% of your Ajusted Gross Income can be deducted. I use TaxACT, an online tax service where you just answer questions, and it automatically calculates the amount. In my case, the deduction was $1,566. It should be more for the 1040 I file for 2007 because we'll be paying four-figures more in prescription costs alone through Aetna, compared to United Health Care.

In any case, it's a hefty amount so all BJ retirees should be sure to include it on their Ohio tax forms. In my case, it reduced my Ohio taxes by $230, so it's worth doing.

The Paper Shredder, an article in the May, 2007 issue of Portfolio, tells a great story:

Knight Ridder sacked, the New York Times Co. under pressure, layoffs pummeling newsrooms: How enigmatic asset manager Bruce Sherman became the scariest guy in journalism.

Author of the article is Gabriel Sherman who has the unfortunate honor of bearing the same last name.

Here are the salient graphs:

On a balmy evening in late January, Bruce Sherman, C.E.O. of Private Capital Management, hosted a dinner for 36 guests at his 12,050-square-foot penthouse overlooking the Gulf of Mexico in Naples, Florida. It was a party with a title—“Essential Indulgence”—held on the eve of the Naples Winter Wine Festival, an annual charity-auction-cum-fete that draws the elite to the city’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort. Indulged, indeed, were the attendees, including Martha Stewart, wine critic Robert Parker, and Judith Sheindlin, Sherman’s cousin, better known as television personality Judge Judy. Master chef Daniel Boulud flew to Naples to prepare an elaborate menu that featured foie gras tartlets with quince.

The 58-year-old Sherman was in good spirits. Surrounded by friends and family, he exuded the confident contentment of someone who had ascended to rarefied heights of money and power—a middle-class public school kid from Queens, New York, now managing $24 billion, with deepening roots in the Naples philanthropic scene. But the evening’s festivities belied a more turbulent reality: Sherman’s billion-dollar-plus newspaper investments in a landscape shifting toward digital media had cost his clients plenty. Long accustomed to betting correctly, Sherman was moving to rectify this uncharacteristic state of affairs with actions that have cast him uncomfortably as a central figure in the drama now upending American journalism.

Sherman (no relation to this writer) is the mysterious investor who forced Knight Ridder to sell itself last year to the McClatchy Co. in a $6.5 billion deal. Journalism has since suffered what might best be described as a collective panic attack. After all, Knight Ridder, owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald, and 30 other daily papers, had been the second-largest newspaper publisher in the country, with 2005 revenues of $3 billion, and it was bought by a company half its size. Moreover, it was the first time that an activist shareholder had successfully engineered the breakup of a publicly traded newspaper company, and it left Knight Ridder C.E.O. Anthony Ridder reeling from the rope-a-dope tactics Sherman used to oust him. Sherman, it turns out, is a guy who doesn’t like surprises but who is adept at springing them.

As part of the deal, McClatchy promptly put 12 of Knight Ridder’s papers up for sale, roiling their newsrooms with uncertainty. Other large publicly traded newspaper chains that were cobbled together in the 1970s and 1980s may soon face similar pressures. Not even the most vaunted press institutions are immune.

Sherman has since joined with other large shareholders, such as Hassan Elmasry of Morgan Stanley’s $11.5 billion Global Franchise Fund, to wage a proxy campaign against chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr.'s dynastic control of the New York Times Co.

Since Sherman felled Knight Ridder, the press has labeled him as reclusive. Actually, he has always operated outside the power orbits of the Ivy League, Wall Street, and the media, and he relishes the freedom that doing business in Naples affords. There, Sherman has carved out his social and financial fiefdom. And it’s some life.

Twice divorced, Sherman finally met a woman of his disposition: Cynthia Kahn, a flaxen-haired media lawyer. They wed in 1999 at the Pierre, in New York City, seven and a half months after Sherman’s second divorce. Kahn, now 51, quit practicing law, and the two wove themselves tightly into Naples’ moneyed fabric of real estate, philanthropy, and politics.. In 2003, they bought their $9.5 million penthouse at the Regent, a 37-unit high-rise on Gulfshore Boulevard, and commissioned a multimillion-dollar renovation.

The Wall Street Journal won two Pulitzer Prizes on Monday for exposing excesses of capitalism –in America and China.

The prizes, awarded by Columbia University, included honors for coverage of the stock options scandal that rattled corporate America in 2006 and what judges called “sharply edged reports on the adverse impact of China’s booming capitalism on conditions ranging from inequality to pollution.”

Gene Roberts, who helped his reporters win Pulitzer Prizes, including 19 while at the Philadelphia Inquirer, won one of his own this year as co-author with Hank Klibanoff for their book "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.”

"It's never too late," said Roberts, who at 74 still teaches journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Click on the headline to see a complete list of winners or to download a file of the winners.

Retired printer Bob Abbott is spearheading an effort to fight the loss of benefits by BJ retirees. Here is his latest report:

This is In regards to the way the BJ is trying (and succeeding) to not honor their separation agreement with so many of us. While some of you might not be directly affected yet by this...when you reach the age of 65 I guarantee you will be at that time.

While the BJ waffling on the Rx card is worrisome, .I'm more concerned by their statement that since "your retiree medical benefits were not vested for life and can be changed." I think their intent is obvious. They will drop all the retirement benefits at their pleasure. With the exception of the pension which is protected (to a point) by Federal laws. So if something doesn't get done you can kiss the Rx cards goodbye.

Counsel has a two-step trial balloon he wants to pursue. One can be accomplished at a reasonable cost.–-probably $300-$500. If all goes well I'm hoping we can get more people on board to really take this to the courts, because it will get more expensive at that time.

Right now...I'm hoping to get each of you to give $50 to a "slush fund" to get started. That's one tank of gasoline to see if we can proceed. I don't want any money right now...but if you can, contact me if you will be willing to help out.

For this step I plan to open a separate checking account and will keep everyone provided with paper work to know how the account and monies are being used. If there is any left over it will be split up and sent back to you. If the case moves past the two steps, .it will be necessary to have someone to handle the cash to make sure everything is above board and transparent.

Right now my name is the only name on the action so you are not affected yet by this do not need to worry it will affect your present situation. The theory here is that if we breach the dam...the water will flow and at that point everybody will benefit.

But if we do nothing...nothing gets done. My personal thought is...that even if I go down at least I'll get a couple pokes at them on the way down. We all know that what they are doing is not right. They obviously don't care and unfortunately being right is sometimes not good enough. We are going to have to fight to get what we signed up for. Unfortunate but true.

Think about this, and if you can get in touch with me by Friday (4/20/07) if you are with me. Then I will get in touch with you in a week or so to get things really rolling.

bob abbott

Added note on your income tax:

Do you know that the cost of your BJ health insurance (non-reimbursed) can be deducted on yourOhio return...I think up to a $200 credit on schedule B. If you did not claim this, you can always file an amended return to perhaps get some money back from your Ohio taxes. This would be a retirement income credit.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Photographer Allan Detrich, who resigned from The Toledo Blade earlier this month after admitting he had altered a photo that appeared in the paper, had submitted at least 79 photos for publication since the beginning of the year that were digitally altered, with 58 of those either appearing in the paper or on the Blade Web site.

In a “report to readers” Sunday, Blade Editor Ron Royhab revealed the findings of a review that began after it was discovered that a Detrich photo published March 31 had been altered. Detrich resigned April 7 after admitting the change to a photo of the Bluffton University baseball team, but claimed it had been mistakenly submitted for publication.

Royhab’s report Sunday said that the paper had reviewed all of Detrich’s photos since the beginning of 2007, some 947 images. The review found that Detrich had submitted 79 such altered images, with 27 of those appearing in the paper and online. Additionally, 31 doctored photos appeared only on the Blade Web site.

“The changes Mr. Detrich made included erasing people, tree limbs, utility poles, electrical wires, electrical outlets, and other background elements from photographs. In other cases, he added elements such as tree branches and shrubbery,” Royhab explained. “Mr. Detrich also submitted two sports photographs in which items were inserted. In one he added a hockey puck and in the other he added a basketball, each hanging in mid-air. Neither was published.”

The Blade also posted three examples on its Web site Sunday of how Detrich altered photos, including the original version of the Bluffton image.

See the Toledo BladeEditor Ron Royhab's report and three examples of how Detrich altered photos.

Beginning this week, readers of the Philadelphia Inquirer will see ads in the bottom right corner of the front page. And, beginning April 30, a new advertising format purchased by Citizens Bank will debut on the front of the weekday Business sections. It will include a Citizens Bank ad across the bottom of the page and another smaller ad in the top corner.

In a more unusual arrangement, a Citizens Bank label will run with a new column produced by Inquirer writers and editors. Some of the revenue from the ads will be used to hire an editor for the column, which will focus on short news items about local, publicly traded companies. The new feature will be boxed in green, Citizens Bank's color.

Media experts the branded column could be confusing to readers.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with sponsorship of editorial content, it can create the perception of advertiser influence, or the real thing, said Jill Geisler, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., school for journalists. Editorial independence is a core journalistic value.

Allowing such sponsorship is "a road that needs good guardrails," she said, "or you can drive yourself off a credibility cliff."

Click on the headline to read the full story by Stacey Burling in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Mizell Stewart III, managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, was inducted into the Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism Hall of Fame at Bowling Green State University. He joined the Beacon Journal as managing editor in February 2006, supervising day-to-day newsroom operations. Previously, he helped lead Knight Ridder journalists in coordinating coverage of Hurricane Katrina at the Biloxi Sun-Herald. That effort earned the 2006 Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service.

I have been reading all the updates on the retiree blog, so I thought I would join in.

I am in Hannover, Germany, for a large industrial fair. This is my first trip abroad for Timken. We have five press interviews scheduled during the fair, and then I'm going on to Frankfurt with our public relations agency there.

I arrived here on Friday morning, relatively on time despite several delays along the way. My luggage, however, remained in Amsterdam. Fortunately, the airline knew where it was and got it to my hotel that evening. Dealing with jet lag was much more challenging. My aging body needs its sleep and does not appreciate monkeying with its internal clock.

This is my first time in Europe. Don't know why I brought only one electrical adapter with me. I packed an extra battery for my laptop, but have to choose between recharging my cell phone and drying my hair. Online access is spotty, especially with 80 Timken people in the same hotel trying to connect to the server in Canton. Such is life.

I had breakfast this morning with a communications team member from China and another from Poland. My "hosts" are three team members from Colmar, France. They all, of course, speak English -- and well, I might add. There are many other Timken Europeans here and even a few associates from Japan and New Zealand.

Timken's international atmosphere can be challenging, but I find it fascinating. There are some headaches involved in this job -- as with any -- and I long for an MBA, an engineering degree and fluency in a foreign language. When I read the postings about the Beacon Journal, I do not regret leaving.

I have about two hours of free time so I think I'll go play tourist for a bit. It is unseasonably warm here. I propped the window open with my briefcase because I have not learned how to operate the air conditioning. I hear it's still chilly back there in Northeast Ohio. I return on April 21, and I'm hoping to see full spring when I land.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Impressions are important. The impression is that the Beacon Journal no longer cares about community relations.

At the beginning of this week, two stalwart, well-known Beacon Journal community relations expefts were laid off. The layoff of Michael Ayers and John Fullerton means the end oxf the community relations and marketing department. Ayers is the brother of retired BJ cartoonis Chuck Ayers.

The blog has been unable to reach them, but we hear that Syvilla Jacoby and William Koszehi of advertising and Michele Meeds in production also got layoff notices and there are rumors that 40 outside the newsroom will be gone.

A veteran newsroom staffer said, "There is so much empty space in this building you could get lost. When the doors to the elevator open on the sedond floor, it looks like we are in the process of moving.. piles here and there... nothing to project a business look."

G. Edwin (Ed) Boss, 74, husband of Betty J. Boss for 42 years, died April 11, 2007 in Akron after a full and diverse life.

Born June 19, 1932 to George and Nora (Furbay) Boss, he grew up in the Akron area and was extremely active in the community. As a young boy he earned the honor of Eagle Scouts with Order of the Arrow distinction and was a Counselor at Camp Y-Noah. He pursued an interest in magic and was a magician and hypnotist in his teenage years and early adulthood. Ed was a graduate of Buchtel High School and Akron University, earning a Bachelor's Degree in Economics. He also attended classes at Purdue University and various sales schools. Ed was a veteran of the United States Air Force.

Throughout a 30 year span, Ed was highly involved in local community theater, performing and directing over 75 plays at various playhouses including Weathervane, Bath, Coach House, University Club, Goodyear, Bear Creek and Western Reserve. Ed worked in radio for almost 40 years and was inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame for being one of the first in the country to accumulate one million dollars in FM sales. He was employed by WNIR, WKNT, WDBN and WCUE. He developed the "Goldfish Bowl Santa" raising 100 pounds of money for the Salvation Army. After retirement, Ed volunteered for Meals on Wheels and at the Metroparks NatureRealm.

Ed and Betty enjoyed life and traveled the world over his lifetime with trips to Ireland, England and Italy. He especially enjoyed cruises and casino excursions. Ed had vivid memories of a trip he took to Africa with his son Bill.

Ed will be deeply missed by his wife, Betty; his son, Bill of Trinidad, Calif.; daughter, Kim Keane and her husband Tom, of Bay Village, son Gary and his wife Katrina, of Akron; his sister, Nancy Wells of Bath; and brother, Bill of Tullahoma, Tenn. He adored his grandsons, Connor, Max, Ryan and Trevor.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his name to the Akron Zoo, where he enjoyed outings with the grandchildren, Akron Zoo c/o Ed Boss Memorial Fund, 500 Edgewood Avenue, Akron, OH 44307 or call 330-375-2550 x7220. An Open House in celebration and remembrance of Ed's life will be held Saturday, April 14th at The Merriman, 209 Merriman Road from 2 to 4 p.m.[Akron Beacon Journal, Saturday, April 14, 2007, poage B6, col. 6]

Friday, April 13, 2007

Here's an update provided by former BJ managing editor Tim Smith to go with a Paul Tople photo of him in his office at Kent State University School of Journalism and Mass Communications where he is a news professor:

Our second grandson, Dashiell Nelli, son of Rachel (middle child) and James, born in Coumbus, Jan. 12. I think I may now be the oldest member of the JMC faculty. Toss-up with Fred Endres for the title. Still teaching journalism, still practicing criminal law, still having fun. BJ alum Jane is still teaching at Litchfield. Grandson Zeb, now three and a half, continues to grow and continues to be a marvel. Being a grandparent is great. Son Bryan is business development manager for the PARTA, the Portage County bus company, and a first-year law student at Akron U. Rachel, when not having a baby, teaches gifted middle-schoolers in Hilliard schools. Rocket scientist Randy, my eldest, works for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Life continues to be good.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press sued its former publisher Thursday, accusing Par Ridder and others of stealing sensitive information as they left for new jobs at the rival Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis.

The sweeping 46-page lawsuit takes aim at the Star Tribune and its new owner, Avista Capital Partners, as well as Ridder and two other former Pioneer Press employees who left the paper with him. It claims, among other things, Ridder committed fraud and civil theft, and disclosed trade secrets.

The suit details a tawdry end to the Ridder family's nearly 80-year involvement with the Pioneer Press.

Ridder plotted his move to the Star Tribune nearly six months before his departure in early March and took with him computer files loaded with confidential data about Pioneer Press advertisers, company budgets and business plans, the lawsuit alleges. The information was stored on his Pioneer Press laptop, which he returned only after downloading its contents, according to the lawsuit.

"Those misdeeds have inflicted and will continue to inflict substantial harm on the business of the Pioneer Press, and that harm will have a devastating impact on the company if left unabated," the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit, filed in Ramsey County District Court in St. Paul:

+ Asks that Ridder and the two other former Pioneer Press employees not be allowed to work at the Star Tribune for a year.

+ Claims all three are violating non-compete clauses that they had at the Pioneer Press.

Here’s an update on maple syrup making in Vermont by former BJ staffer Geff Gevalt posted on his Editor’s Blog for his Young Writers Project:

It snowed again.

Great run of sap on Wednesday. Temperatures near 40, late afternoon sun. The buckets on the west side of the trees were pretty full, the eastern ones much less so. We hauled 120 gallons out of the 42 taps. Jake helped, stressed as he was with homework. So did Lily, who each year develops a unique way of carrying the 5-gallon Home Depot paint buckets we use to collect the sap. She fills it to 3 gallons, uses both hands, straddles the bucket, lifts and then walks, rather waddles, to the storage area. It’s funny. And she gets laughing so hard she has to keep putting the bucket down. This is in stark contrast to her method of strapping it to the tobaggon and zipping down the hill spilling nary a drop — in defiance of gravity and all other known laws of physics. But there was no snow Wednesday night; so it was the walking method she used.

Wednesday night we boiled out about half a gallon.

Tonight was gorgeous. Four or five inches of heavy snow; tree branches coated looking almost lighted from the reflections of the sugarhouse lights; owl loose in the woods calling out to a mate far away. Tasty sugar-on-snow night. Boiled another half gallon. About 80 gallons left in storage. Time for bed.

Veteran journalist Sam Fulwood III has been dropped from his metro columnist's job at the Cleveland Plain Dealer by outgoing editor Douglas C. Clifton, Fulwood and Clifton confirmed on Thursday. Fulwood told Journal-isms (a blog by Richard Prince on the Maynard Institute for Journalsim Educatrion) he thought the move "mean-spirited."

Clifton said Fulwood's Thursday column, on embattled radio host Don Imus, was Fulwood's last, and that he was being reassigned to the arts and features staff to do general assignment stories on the pop culture beat.

Plain Dealer veteran Richard Peery, who took a buyout last fall after more than 30 years at the paper, told Journal-isms on Thursday that "the concern" was that Fulwood would be replaced by editorial writer Phillip Morris, whom Peery called "one of those . . . black writers who reinforces white supremacy rather than challenges it, and he does it constantly. I've told him that to his face," he said. Morris did not respond to a request for comment.

The Plain Dealer announced later in the day that Morris, who has served on the Plain Dealer's editorial board for the past 16 years, would succeed Fulwood and that his first column would appear April 24.

"'Phillip's once weekly op-ed column has been one of the paper's strongest, and the Metro column will allow him to do more of what he does best — get out into the community and offer intelligent perspective on it,' Clifton told the newsroom in an e-mail," the Plain Dealer story said.

Clifton told Journal-isms he expected that Morris' column would go "deeper into the community. Sam's column was occasionally that way, but it was more his personal reflections, which is perfectly fine, and frankly, I wanted something different."

Fulwood replied that "there's 180 days of my column on the Web site" if anyone wanted to see whether he had been in the community.

Fulwood, 50, came to the Cleveland paper in 2000 after 11 years in the Los Angeles Times' Washington Bureau.

"We're enormously lucky to have him," Clifton told readers on July 25, 2000. "He's an outstanding newspaper man with a passion for the business. Already he's shown concern and interest in Cleveland."

Fullwood's column was headlined: Imus bosses share the blame. It said, in part:

By estimates reported in The New York Times, Imus' frequently offensive and all-too-often racist comments generate in excess of $20 million in annual revenue for CBS Radio.

Add with what Imus has produced in ad sales for the network's affiliates and MSNBC, the self-proclaimed "shock jock" is a mouthy $50 million moneymaking machine for his bosses.

Fullwood concludes:

No, the truly disgusting part is that institutions allow Imus to do his edgy thing. They are like the silent and never-seen drug lords who make it possible for a street-level bully like Imus to traffic in blatant obscenities.

They do it because it's too profitable for them to turn their backs. So he's allowed repeatedly to insult, defame and humiliate women, Jews, African- Americans, so long as it draws a crowd to hear him.

What's worse, Imus is aided by a bevy of the nation's leading journalists, politicians, writers and entertainers. The guests on his show - former Sen. Bill Bradley, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, NBC News anchor Brian Williams, among others - make up the nation's media and intellectual elite.

By agreeing to sit for a pseudo- interview with this odious 67-year-old hatemonger, his famous and accomplished enablers allow their celebrity to burnish Imus' veneer of respectability. Plus, they provide the laugh track for his racist routines.

Imus rose to fame at Cleveland's old WHK and later honed his act at WWWE and WKNR in the 1990s.

In a move that could shift the balance of power in the newspaper industry, McClatchy Co. has abandoned a national online advertising partnership with Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. to join a rival group of publishers that is in the final stages of negotiating a broad deal with Yahoo Inc., according to people familiar with the discussions.

Final agreement on the Yahoo deal, including McClatchy's involvement, could be announced as early as next week, these people say. The network would establish a common online platform among a large group of newspaper Web sites that would allow an advertiser to easily purchase advertising space across multiple newspaper sites.

McClatchy's decision means Tribune and Gannett could be isolated from what appears to be a growing industry coalition aimed at creating an online national ad platform with Yahoo. Led by Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group Inc., the rival group already includes 12 publishers that represent more than 250 newspapers across the country. The group initially struck an agreement last fall with Yahoo's Hotjobs employment site, but since then has been working on broadening that arrangement. McClatchy owns such papers as the Miami Herald and the Sacramento Bee.

The new deal would require that the newspapers in the consortium use Yahoo search on their Web sites. Yahoo and the newspapers would sell ads on each others' Web sites, and the revenue would be shared among the partners, according to people familiar with the discussions. Content from the newspapers in the partnership would be featured on Yahoo's individual channels, such as news and technology.

Click on the headline to read the full report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Society of Professional Journalists has announced recipients of the 2006 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for excellence in journalism.

This year’s winners were chosen from more than 1,200 entries in 49 categories including print, radio, television and online.

The Sigma Delta Chi Awards date back to 1932, when the Society first honored six individuals for contributions to journalism. The current program began in 1939, when the organization awarded the first Distinguished Service Awards. These awards later became the Sigma Delta Chi Awards.

The awards, which recognize work published in 2006, will be presented July 20 during the annual Sigma Delta Chi Awards banquet at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Forty-three newsroom employees at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution have opted to take buyouts offered by the paper as part of a restructuring, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

There were up to 80 staffers among the 475 full-time newsroom employees at Georgia's largest newspaper who were offered the buyouts in February.

Most of those who have accepted the buyout will leave the newspaper on June 30, but some may be asked to stay longer to help provide continuity for the paper, spokesperson Mary Dugenske said.

The voluntary buyouts were presented to employees who are at least 55 years old and have more than 10 years at the paper. There will be no involuntary layoffs. Some staffers who remain may be asked to take on new roles at the paper, Dugenske said.

There were a few above the usual dozen attending the BJ Retirees lunch on Wednesday (April 11) at Papa Joe's Restaurant in the Valley. Among the non-regulars at the lunch was retired photographer Ron Kuner. The regular top attender Bob Pell was there and is looking good, and feeling good he says. You can see that from his photo and another of Kuner in an album of seven photos you will find by clicking on the headline above. Tom Moore took the photos.

If you did not sell the McClatchy stock issued to you when Knight Ridder succumbed, you should have received a big package in the mail this week with a proxy card asking you to approve the election of four members of the board of directors and to ratify the appointment of Deloitte & Touche to audit McClatchy for fiscal 2007. On item one you can vote for all nominees except those you have marked or withold your vote for all nominees. There is a little box below which allows you to write in the number of any director you do not wish to elect. You thus could write 03 to say you do not wish to elect P. Anthony Ridder. So check that card out. You just might want to send it in.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Tampa Tribune said today that it plans to lay off 70 employees as part of a cost reduction plan.

“Our decision to part with valued employees was difficult, and we very much appreciate the contributions of all those who will be affected by today’s announcement,” said Denise Palmer, president and publisher of The Tampa Tribune.

The paper currently has approximately 1,335 employees.

As part of its cost reduction strategy, Palmer said the paper planned to consolidate certain operations and outsource others.

Employees affected by the cost reduction plan will be informed over the next few days. Full-time employees will be offered severance packages, Palmer said.

The paper also plans several changes to the daily newspaper, including combining the Friday Baylife section into the Friday Extra section.

“The combined section will provide readers all the information they need to plan their weekend,” Palmer said.

On Sunday, the company plans to realign certain sections of the newspaper to improve ease of use and reduce costs, the publisher added.

As someone who has pointed out how switching to Aetna from UHC for prescriptions will cost me ($1,840 a year), it's only fair that I reveal that Aetna paid every cent of my $1,797.75 colorectal screening at Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital since my $250 deductible had been met earlier this year.

Under UHC/KRI/BJ, my deductible was $2,000. So Aetna pays $1,750 more than UHC by the time I would have hit the $2,000 UHC deductible.

I can see that we're going to get a lot of criss-crossing to the bad and good sides of the switch from UHC to Aetna under the Canadian.

A University of Akron graduate student is preparing a documentary on John S. Knight.The Times of John S. Knight is a documentary being produced by Paul R. Jacoway and The University of Akron.

Jacoway is a graduate student in the College of Communication and under the advisement of Dr. Kathleen Endres. The project will chronicle Knight's life and contributions through his Editor's Notebook columns and parallel journalism/news events. Contacts are being established at the Beacon Journal for location shooting and with the JSK Foundation for further exposure.

“The project is in the research stage now,” Jacoway said.. “We will be shooting in the summer and fall. Editing will be completed in early 2008.”

Anyone who would like to participate is more than welcome. You can reach Paul Jacoway at paul_jacoway@yahoo.com, 330-374-0237. 715 W. Market St. Apt. 412. Akron, OH 44303.Blogger Note: Some months ago it was suggested on this blog that it was time for a documentary to update the Knight Ridder history to include its demise last year. . Little or no interest has been shown for that idea. Perhaps Jacoway’s documentary might bring the history up to date.

Monday, April 09, 2007

He was born in Akron. He was employed by The Akron Beacon Journal, had owned Newmark Realty and was in real estate and sales his entire career. Charles was a member of Nativity of the Lord Jesus Catholic Church and president of FCSLU.Mr. Salsky was preceded in death by father, John. He is survived by wife, Linda (nee Baranek); mother, Agnes; children, Nancy (Travis) Johnson, Charles D. (Jan) Salsky and Marc Salsky; siste, Dolores (Chick) Kratzer; brothers, John (Laura) Salsky, Bob (Susan) Salsky; and granddaughter, Kate Salsky.

Funeral Mass of Christian Burial will be held Tuesday 7 p.m. at Nativity of the Lord Catholic Church, 2425 Myersville Rd., where the family will receive friends from 5 p.m. until the time of service. Cremation to follow service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society. (Kucko-Anthony-Kertesz, 330-724-1281, www.kakfh.com)

Friday, April 06, 2007

The weekly News Index and Talk Show Index we have been posting on the BJ Retirees website since they began can now be found by going directly to the site of the Project for Excellence in Journalism which includes bar graphs and other displays. Instead of printing a summary of the information, we are now making a link directly to their website. From our main BJ Retirees website, just click on the News Index which is in the list of items you might want to see. There are other display items on the PEJ site and an archive of past reports..

Here's John Olesky’s report on a trip with Paula to Gettysburg and Washington, D.C. Click on the headline to see more photos. And click on the photo here to see the beauty of the cherry blossoms.

By John OleskyPaula and I encountered Civil War history and today’s monuments-flavored democracy during our 4-day trip to Gettysburg and Washington, D.C.

I continue to be astounded, as I was during my previous Gettysburg Battlefield visit, that Generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet and George Pickett would send 12,500 infantrymen from the woods and across three-fourths of a mile of open land and up Cemetery Ridge with Union cannons and rifles blazing down on them from Little Round Top. Only 150 made it past the rocks line near the top, and 40 yards beyond the peak. More than half the Southern soldiers died that day, and there were 43,000 to 51,000 dead on both sides for the three-day battle. It was the South’s farthest advance on Northern soil, and the Union army shoved Lee’s men back within two hours. Lee’s attempt to penetrate Northern soil to convince England and France to aid the South failed.

We bought a CD which, with a map, provided driving instructions to key battle sites. Once you were at a site, you listened to a dramatization with cannon fire and actors portraying the combatants. It worked chillingly well. Gettysburg was an ugly family fight.

We had dinner at Dobbin House Tavern, built in 1776 on 300 acres of land four score and seven years before Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address within sight of the tavern. Few words; powerful statement. It’s a pity today’s politicians don’t follow Lincoln’s example.

In Washington we got passes to the subway and the hop-on, hop-off trolley. That avoided the parking hassle and got us everywhere we decided to go.

Since 9/11, Pennsylvania Avenue has been denied to vehicle traffic for blocks, so you can use the street to walk around the White House area, must like you do on Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls. A bunch of guys with online skates and a rubber ball played street hockey in front of the White House. Across the street in Lafayette Park, I found a statue of one of my Revolutionary War heroes, Thaddeus Kosciusko, who came from Poland and directed fortifications at Saratoga and West Point. Oh, there also was a statue of that French guy who gave the park its name.

At Arlington Cemetery we saw way too many graves (250,000) from too many wars. Also John F. Kennedy’s eternal flame, heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis’ headstone labeled “The Brown Bomber” and West Virginians’ markers. At the Vietnam Memorial wall, a guide with a hand-held electronic device located the name of Paula’s former neighbor in Cuyahoga Falls.

We listened to a rock concert while sitting on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, as we looked out over the Tidal Basin and to the Washington Monument.

Former Beacon Journal reporter, now the medical writer for the Associated Press, was on the front page of the BJ again today with a fabulous story that a rare, inherited gene may have caused the Hatfield-McCoy fued.

Marilyn was used to making page 1 of the BJ. Today’s story probably landed her on front pages across the country. AP graphics to illustrate the story were used with the jump.

Here are the first few graphs. Click on the headline above to read the full story.Gene might lead McCoys to feudingAppalachian family's rare, inherited disease can trigger outbursts

By Marilynn MarchioneAssociated PressThe most infamous feud in American folklore, the long-running battle between the Hatfields and McCoys, might be partly explained by a rare, inherited disease that can lead to hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts.

Dozens of McCoy descendants apparently have the disease, which causes high blood pressure, racing hearts, severe headaches and too much adrenaline and other ``fight or flight'' stress hormones.

No one blames the whole feud on this, but doctors say it could help explain some of the clan's notorious behavior.

``This condition can certainly make anybody short-tempered, and if they are prone because of their personality, it can add fuel to the fire,'' said Dr. Revi Mathew, a Vanderbilt University endocrinologist treating one of the family members.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Neal Shine, a former publisher and editor of The Detroit Free Press who played important roles as the newspaper won major awards and later as it weathered the industry’s longest strike, died yesterday near Detroit. He was 76.Guess what? The New York Times from whom we steal this copy spelled his first name wrong

The cause of Shine’s death was listed as respiratory failure..

In nearly half a century at the Detroit Free Press,. Shine worked his way up from copy boy to reporter to publisher. After helping to direct some of the paper’s proudest accomplishments, he retired in 1995.As city editor, he helped direct the coverage of the Detroit race riots, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and the reports on the shootings of students at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970, which won the Free Press a George Polk award.

[Retirees who were in the newsroom in 1970 might recall Shine was at the BJ to help with Knight Ridder coverage of the shootings.]

By the time Shine retired, the Free Press was embroiled in a 19-month labor strike that put Mr. Shine on the opposite side of the picket line from some of his closest colleagues and friends.

Mr. Shine began working at The Free Press as a copy boy in 1950, left in 1953 to spend two years in the Army and then returned as a reporter. By 1965 he was city editor. He became managing editor in 1971 and senior managing editor in 1982. He retired in 1989, returning the next year as publisher.